Florida One

What intrigued me about Florida as a kid was the warm weather all year round and the palm trees. I'd only seen pictures and they weren't enough. I wanted to experience it myself.

That happened in my twenties. A road trip covered the entire coast, down the west gulf side, on to the string of islands called the Keys, and back up the east Atlantic side.

During the 1970s, Florida was a quieter place than it is today. Where condominiums, stores, and parking lots are now, the land was wild and free back then. Who knew that it would so drastically change over the years?

Miami amazed me with its outer miles of Spanish-speaking people, I assume from Cuba, who owned the motels and stores and restaurants along strips of highway.

Miami Beach was wealthy old hotels and the rich and famous, who came to entertain or relax or show off their status and money. It was a Jewish haven, for the old and young alike.

Key West was quaint and small and strange, a place for escapees to mingle with their common interests and drugs. There was not even one large hotel then, when I went. Two years later, a chain motel was built to bring in people who didn't think that staying in a tiny cabin surrounded by unmown grass was ideal. It was a quiet island then.

In fact, all of Florida was quieter than it is today, and I miss that. I live here now and have for twenty years, and I miss the way it was.